British journalist Ms Yvonne Ridley, captured and then freed by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, returned today to London and a family reunion.
Ms Ridley (43) said nothing to waiting reporters after arriving at Heathrow airport just outside London.
A spokeswoman for her employer, the Sunday Express, said she would meet her family, including her nine-year-old daughter Daisy, later.
Ms Ridley was seized near the northeast Afghan city of Jalalabad on September 28, dressed in an all-enveloping burqa and without documentation, after having crossed the border from Pakistan to report on the refugee crisis.
Two guides with her were also arrested. It was unclear today what their fate was.
The Taliban initially suggested ms Ridley would be put on trial, but released her Monday despite a first wave of US-led air strikes in Afghanistan.
Her 74-year-old mother Joyce had sharply criticised the government for not delaying the military action until Ms Ridley was out of Afghanistan.
A day after her release, she told her paper's sister Daily Expressthat she had gone on hunger strike while being held.
"Hunger strike was the only weapon I had. It was the only thing I could do that they couldn't stop me doing."
She said she had written a diary using the inside of a toothpaste box and a soap wrapper and had been segregated from the other prisoners because she was so "difficult."
Ridley told the Expressthat she was never physically hurt, but her captors tried to break her mentally by asking the same questions "time and time again, day after day".
AFP